


Two Black Boxes

by ChaChaCharlieCo



Category: Kingdom Hearts, NieR: Automata
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24287653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaChaCharlieCo/pseuds/ChaChaCharlieCo
Summary: Two androids do their best to avoid fate.
Relationships: Sora/Kairi (Kingdom Hearts)
Kudos: 42





	1. Spice

A cloaked man stood at the top of a deserted, crumbling castle, overlooking a vibrant forest. A cool breeze hit him and he shivered, holding on to his hood before it went off his head. He inhaled and stretched, taking in the fresh air.

“Ah, abandoned, yet full of life.” He said to himself while he watched over a herd of animals trotting through the wood. He pulled out a small book, and briefly went through its contents.

“This place is pretty interesting. But let’s spice it up a bit. Just a tiny bit.”

He turned the pages to the very back of the book and ripped out the last few. He slipped them into his pocket and nonchalantly dropped the book from where he was, watching it fall and turning away once he heard a distant thud. He rubbed his gloved hands together and chuckled.

“I was getting a bored anyway.”


	2. 7S and 7O

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 7S finds an unknown book and reports back to his Operator.

> My name is 7S
> 
> A newly manufactured Scanner model.
> 
> March 28, 11945
> 
> Rolled out at 2:34 AM, Bunker time.

> “I will fight for humanity with all my strength.
> 
> I’m here to provide support!”

It was cold. I guess all androids felt like this in the beginning. Nothing to do but fight for humanity. Would I end up dying in the end? Most likely. We’re soldiers, that’s part of the job description.

“If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.”

7O. Same number as me. And manufactured at the same date as I was. She smiled with her hand outstretched toward me.

“I look forward to working with you, 7S!”

“I look forward to working with you too!” I nodded and shook her hand.

And just like that, I was immediately sent to Earth.

* * *

It was awfully quiet in the Forest Kingdom. But it wasn’t like this until a couple of YorHa androids came into the castle and killed the machine’s so called “King”. It caused the rusty citizens of the pretend kingdom in distress, busy mourning for the death of their infant ruler. It was a perfect time to infiltrate their castle.

A lone scanner android strolled through the forest, followed by a floating robot Pod. His spiky brown hair bouncing as he took a step, wearing standard YorHa black uniform complete with a blindfold, only that his sleeves were rolled up to his biceps. He expertly dodged the few armoured machines that still patrolled the forest and made his way to his marked destination. His life was exactly like this ever since he was deployed to Earth. Let the combat androids take care of a vicinity, and when it was safer, he would infiltrate, collect info, then proceed to the next area. Rinse and repeat.

Before long, he found himself in an abandoned library in the castle, in awe of how large it was. He wasted no time looking through the books but ended up disappointed in his findings.

“Are all these books in our database already?”

“Affirmative. It was recently uploaded to the server approximately 2 hours ago.” The Pod floated nearby.

“Hm.. so someone’s already been here and scanned the place...”

“Affirmative.”

“Search the library again. I want no stone unturned.”

7S watched as his pod flew to the ceiling of the library and did a full scan.

“Alert: detected one unknown book.”

“Where is it?”

His pod led him to the item, lying on top of debris from the crumbling castle with light shining down on it thanks to a hole in the ceiling.

“Kingdom Hearts... What a bizarre title.”

The pod levitated in front of him, a call coming from his operator.

“7S, status report?”

“I’ve found material that wasn’t included in the recent data haul of the library. It must have been missed, ma’am.”

“Send it through immediately.”

7S opened his HUD and digitized all the pages with the Pod’s assistance. Within seconds, they sent the file straight to 7O.

“Thank you, 7S! Is there anything else you might deem useful in your current location?”

“...No. There’s nothing I can do here.”

“In that case, please proceed to your next objective.”

“Copy that.”

She ended the call, leaving 7S alone with the book and his Pod.

7O and 7S were partners from the very beginning. He rarely bumped into any other android and only visited the resistance camp for maintenance now and then. So he really had no choice but to only interact with her, and yet he was okay with that. She wasn’t a pain to work with, she was nothing but kind to him.

Then that one time she praised him after a mission went smoothly.

“Well done 7S! I’m so proud of you!” She clapped, her eyes closed but he could tell she was smiling.

He simply stared at his screen, watching her respond in glee, slowly putting a hand on his chest. Being told he was doing a good job, and how happy she was... it felt... good. It felt... warm. What... is this?

Ever since, he did his best in everything 7O assigned to him. Just to see her smile, hear her approval, feel that warmth. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her. Whatever he was feeling could be a defect in his system. Emotions were prohibited after all. Who knows what would happen if the Bunker knew?

He shook his head, took a deep breath to cool himself down and glanced at his Pod. It said nothing. He sighed in relief. His pod used to alert him that his system would heat up whenever 7O praised him. It freaked him out, thinking that if his Pod sensed some malfunctions it could send a message back to the Bunker about it.

As he was about to put the book back, he paused for a moment. For some strange reason, he could not find himself to leave it. He stared at it for a couple of minutes until his Pod questioned why he seemed so hesitant. He wasn’t sure himself why he would be so drawn to a mere book, a book that he could access digitally now that it was in database.

And yet, something was telling him not to abandon it.

* * *

“7O, anything to report?”

The commander stood behind the red haired operator, arms crossed and her face unreadable.

“My scanner has found a book of unknown origin, ma’am. Though it doesn’t seem to serve any purpose for our cause.”

“Nevertheless, it still needs to be assessed. I task you with going through the book and find any sort of information that could be useful.”

“Of course.”

“You two are doing well. Keep this up and we would be glad to promote you both to a much higher position.” The commander then left 7O to her post while she bowed in respect. 7O frowned. A promotion was supposed to make her happy. But it could also mean...

7O turned on her seat, facing her holographic devices. She dismissed those thoughts for now and begun assessing the material.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im just winging this story I have no idea what I am doing.
> 
> But there will be violence and I’ll put some warnings before we get to it.


	3. Look-A-like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 7S goes to an Amusement Park.

7S threaded through the sewers, going through the book via audio narration until his Pod automatically opened an image of one of the characters. He stared at it for a few seconds and poked at his own hair.

“He looks... exactly like me.” The android touched the floating HUD and inspected the model. “One of the seven guardians of light. Sora... This is weird.” He looked through more information from the character. “Chosen by a legendary weapon. He fought to protect his friends.”

He gawked at the image of the girl under the label of “relationship”, and he pressed on her information box.

“... Born in the same year... Also one of the seven guardians of light and a princess of light, she is special to Sora and both assisted each other in different ways throughout their quests.”

She looked so much like-

“Report: This “Kairi” character also bears a very striking resemblance to Unit 7S’ appointed operator, Unit 7O.” His pod pointed out.

The android nodded. It had got to be a coincidence, isn’t it? There were plenty of materials that featured fictional characters that had a few look-a-likes in the real world. Was it not normal to find characters that look exactly like them? It also said they were born in the same year, just like how him and 7O. He wasn’t sure how to process this information. Perhaps the operator would know what to do? Now that she has the intel, surely she would be analysing it right now.

“We should focus on the mission first. We’ll deal with this information later.” He dismissed all the HUDs and found himself at a ladder, leading to the surface.

He hoisted himself up from the manhole and immediately noticed the smell of gunpowder wafting in the air. He hid behind a nearby tree cautiously and watched the different coloured lights exploding in the sky as well as the hearing the echoes of loud chanting.

“FUN. LeT’s hAve FUN!”

“HaPpY! tOGEther! TogETHer!”

“FuN. FUN. fUn.”

He peeked out from his hiding place and raised a brow. Machines dressed in clown attire, danced and pranced and threw vibrant confetti wherever they marched. They didn’t seem to be hostile and their usual weapons shot weak fireworks and confetti out of them. But still, he needed to be careful.

He jumped with a yelp when a peppy clown machine mysteriously popped up in front of him out of nowhere. He quickly equiped his combat gauntlets, readying himself to strike at it.

“WELCOME TO THE PARK! ARE YOU WAITING FOR YOUR DATE?

“Date?”

“YOU’RE BY YOURSELF?

7S slowly put his weapons down and glanced at his Pod “Not exactly-”

“YOU’RE ALONE? WOW. HOW PATHETIC. BUT DON’T WORRY, MR ANDROID. YOU WON’T BE LONELY HERE! WE’LL ALL HAVE FUN HERE! TOGETHER. TOGETHER!”

7S scowled in irritation. Pathetic? Him? Who does this machine think it is? And he’s not alone, he’s got his Pod with him. And why is this machine even talking to him in friendly terms? Are they not enemies? Is this what happens when the machines disconnect themselves from their network?

“DON’T BE SAD, MR ANDROID. COME! ENJOY THE PARK!” The machine quickly stepped aside with its arms pointing at the theme park, as if it sensed the fowl mood it put him in, then quickly hopped away as fast as it could.

He kept his guard up as he walked through the park just in case the machines would attack him, but they never did. They were all stuck in an endless loop of senseless happiness and celebration, too distracted to care about the android. Fine by him. He wasn’t built to fight anyway.

To his surprise the theatre was cleaned out. He was tasked of investigating the corpses that remained in the theatre after the YorHa Unit 2B and 9S infiltrated it. 7S’ pod flew a little higher above him.

“Report: the remaining YoRHa corpses are not present.”

“Obviously.”

“Hypothesis: the surrounding Machine lifeforms removed all unwanted objects in the area to provide space for their own theatrical entertainment.”

“Where did they store them?”

“Unknown.”

Hmm. He did pass through a lobby, there could be a staircase or an elevator somewhere-

“Did you come to see the play?” A small Machine approached him. It had a pink bow on its head, its yellow glowing eyes blinked at him.

“...No.”

“Oh, I was gonna tell you that there wouldn’t be one anyway. The actors from the previous play offed themselves on stage. It was really poetic actually. A declaration of love.”

He raised a brow at the little machine. “Do you know anything about “love”?”

“Do you?”

7S was silent.

“I think it’s something special.”

“Special?”

“Mhmm. I have to go now. It was nice meeting you, Mr Android.” The little machine hopped away from him and a larger one approached it and left the theatre together with their hands locked together with the other one, but not before the bigger machine stared at the android with a hint of a red glow in its eyes and exited without a word. 7S watched the odd mechanical couple leave the theatre with a stern look on his face.

His Pod levitated in front of him with an incoming call.

“Operator 7O to 7S, are you there?”

“7S here.”

“Any reports on your current location?”

“The corpses had been disposed somehow, the machines seemed to have cleaned up the place.”

“Huh. Have you found where they disposed them?”

“No, not yet. I still have to do a thorough search of-“

“That won’t be necessary. I need you to do your next task immediately.”

What’s happening? 7O was always thorough with her missions. “Are you sure?”

“...yes.”

He waited for her to send coordinates to his map but he couldn’t help but observe her image. She really did look like her.

“By the way, that book you found, I was tasked by the commander to assess its contents. It’s rather interesting.”

His shoulders slumped, relieved that she was analysing the book. Which meant he could ask her about it to understand more of its contents. “I’ve been reading it too, it certainly brought up some... questions.”

“Like?”

“Well for starters, I look a lot like the main character.”

“Not a lot. You’re the exact copy of him! Wait, let me double check.” She opened another screen with the main character on it and looked at him then at 7S for a long time. 7S felt his cheeks burn from her stare and found himself looking away and exited the theatre while still in the call with 7O. “Yep. A complete copy. Y’know what? His name should be your nickname!”

“A nickname?”

“Yeah! From now on, I’ll call you “Sora”! Much better than 7S, right? And it could stop the confusion between our names, being the same numbers and all.”

A nickname... from 7O. He took a deep breath as he felt that warmth again with a hint of embarrassment. It was just a nickname but why does he feel so giddy over it?

7O was busy typing on her end but he hoped his Pod wouldn’t pick up his sudden temperature spike.

“...His love interest looks like me.” She muttered quietly to herself, patted her face and squinted at her screen. She shook her head and continued typing. “Sorry, I got distracted. I’m sending coordinates to your Map. Your next objective is still the same. Good luck out there!”

“Wait, operator!” But she already ended her call. 7S scratched his head at her silent remark earlier.

“Query: Does Unit 7S suspect that he may be experiencing romantic emotions?”

“Huh?”

“Hypothesis: Unit 7S has been holding romantic feelings towards Operator 7O for some time. Which explains the fluctuating temperatures of his system whenever she is present.”

“Wh- No! I- My cooling system is fine, Pod! Stop scanning me!”

“Unable to obey command. YoRHa pods are designed to keep their designated android model in check and report their performance back to the Bunker.”

“NO PLEASE. DON’T TELL MY OPERATOR!” He reached for his Pod and missed. The surrounding Machines stopped their activities and watched 7S chase his Pod around.

“Proposal: Unit 7S should stop his pursuit to avoid exerting energy.”

“I would if you could just not tell the Bunker!”

“Already obeying command.”

“Huh?” 7S paused.

“This Pod has been sending false reports of Unit 7S’ status. The Bunker does not know of any temperature changes to your Unit model.”

“Why?”

“...Constant reports of a model experiencing emotional attachment is unwanted data. This pod will only send analytic data that is related to combat situations.”

7S stared at his pod for a minute until he chuckled in relief that his emotional turmoil towards 7O was not going to be classified as defective, allowing some breathing room to figure out what was going on with him. Though perhaps his Pod’s hypothesis might be correct. He could be holding romantic feelings for 7O.

Maybe studying the character, “Sora”, could be the key.


End file.
